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For the sake of this discussion, we will make the following assumptions:

1. There is a deity.

2. Part of you continues on after death.

Even given little to no knowledge of the spirit world or after-life, it would STILL BE IMPOSSIBLE for a part to encounter the whole any more than a cell in my spleen can encounter the being of "Swami". Can a pebble encounter the mountain, a drop encounter the ocean? No.

Quote:Even given little to no knowledge of the spirit world or after-life, it would STILL BE IMPOSSIBLE for a part to encounter the whole any more than a cell in my spleen can encounter the being of "Swami". Can a pebble encounter the mountain, a drop encounter the ocean? No.

If becoming part of the whole is not encountering it then WTF?Can a cell in your spleen become the being Swami? All the information is there.Can a pebble become a mountain? In large groups of course.Can a drop encounter an ocean? A drop can BE an ocean,check your scale.One must encounter something in order to become one with it Eh?... I suppose.WRPS none of your examples are self aware eh? Any intelligent examples you can pull out yer arse? Because non-aware objects do not by definition "know" if they are "encountering" anything.So your theory holds true only if you are not self aware and intelligent, otherwise given the conditions you describe one would be able to know the self and the "other", if such a relationship exists after death.Apples and oranges Swami,you should be ashamed .Reframe the premise using a self aware,intelligent example and make it work.WR

Think scale and the tools we use to measure it.Your gaseous entity may have a gaseous microscope and know everything about you,because you canna ken it, it is irrelevent? As for an ant and an elephant using your premise when they die how big are their spirits? for that matter what causes you to believe we will not become as large or small as the Deity you describe.Since you are ascribing physical attributes to spiritual events just what makes you think there is a spiritual scaling of awareness.The scaling of awareness is locked as a purely physical input not spiritual,infact spiritual experience is marked by feeling "at one" with creation,or if you will by "encountering totality"WR

Quote:Swami said:For the sake of this discussion, we will make the following assumptions:

1. There is a deity.

2. Part of you continues on after death.

Even given little to no knowledge of the spirit world or after-life, it would STILL BE IMPOSSIBLE for a part to encounter the whole any more than a cell in my spleen can encounter the being of "Swami". Can a pebble encounter the mountain, a drop encounter the ocean? No.

a. First, I don't care for those analogies.

And anyways, which pebble? Could a pebble in Iraq encounter a mountain in the U.S.A.? Which drop? If it was a drop in the center of our country, not near any rivers, most likely it will never encounter the ocean.

b. Assuming, then, that part of you continues after death, which "part"? Do you have a part in mind, or do we pick a part? And this is what causes your "pebble" and "drop" analogies not to work too well, if we discuss this according to the part I think exists after we die, because pebbles/mountains and drop/ocean is not the same thing as us being connected to God.

The part that continues is your spirit. If we are all made of the same essence of which God is made, if we are all connected because of our essence, then of course when we go through physical death, we will be reconnected to God because we are no longer inhibited by our physical bodies.

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard

Reconnecting or merging is not the same as knowing or encountering. Food merges with my body but does not know it.

Let's try from one more angle. Your eyes can only see part of the EM spectrum. To see the entire EM spectrum (or spirit spectrum - if you will) they would have to be God's eyes. To FULLY encounter God you would have to be on a par with him/her/it.

As much as I am trying, I don't understand what you are talking about. I think you may need to explain this better:

it would STILL BE IMPOSSIBLE for a part to encounter the whole

You seem to be implying that we can't know God, even if one exists, because it's impossible, somehow.

If I am understanding accurately what you appear to be saying, why is it impossible to know God?

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard

How can a human know the entire universe unless he IS God? To hear every sound, see every sight, smell every smell, know every creature and it's acts, understand every atomic particle' movement and galactic interaction?

The finite can only comprehend the finite. To comprehend the infinite, you would have to be infinite.

My understanding is that we are infinite. Our spirits are infinite. We don't know God, or better word, "grok" God, because our spirits are limited by our physical bodies. When we are spirits, we are infinite, and can know God better because we are no longer limited by our physical imperfections. Something like that.

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard

I agree. Our goal, here, is to be more "like" God, even though we are limited in that we are human beings and we are weak. It's would be easier to be like God if we weren't so limited.

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard